


Residuum in Gunmetal

by mllelaurel



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: D/s, Edgeplay, Established Relationship, F/M, Femdom, Fluff and Smut, Gun Kink, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mllelaurel/pseuds/mllelaurel
Summary: “I’d turn around slowly if I were you, my Lord de Rollo,” Vex says, and reaches for the holster at her hip, drawing the pepperbox and raising it even with the back of his head.Or: the value and allure of playing with fire.





	Residuum in Gunmetal

It starts as planned. Percy’s at his writing desk, the desk he never uses, preferring the one in his workshop. He doesn’t look up when Vex comes in, which would be anyone’s first sign he’s playing. Or possibly comatose. Her Percy’s sense of his own space is fine tuned, maybe too fine. Years of peace have not been enough to wear down his hypervigilance. She keeps to the shadows for form’s sake, as much shadow as the familiarity of their own firelit bedroom might allow. 

“I’d turn around slowly if I were you, my Lord de Rollo,” she says, and reaches for the holster at her hip, drawing the pepperbox and raising it even with the back of his head.

He stands, turns, his posture very straight. A hint of a sardonic smile tugs at his lips, vague enough she can’t quite mark it as a sign of enjoyment or an act of defiance. He’ll be damned if he’d give anyone the satisfaction of knowing they’d hurt him. “What an unexpected pleasure,” he drawls. “Home invaders. Just what I’ve always wanted. Who are you again?” 

His icy blue eyes sweep over her like she’s nothing. He’s a very good actor, any trace of recognition in his voice twisted into boredom. In this moment, he is every Syngornian noble who’s passed her an empty glass at a party like she was a member of the waitstaff, or tugged on the blunted tips of her ears like they had permission. 

Shame and rage churn hot in her stomach, alchemizing into a heady, vicious brew of desire, and she backhands him, left-handed and hard enough to hurt. Normally he’d have a fair chance of catching her strike, twisting her arm behind her back, changing up the game. But tonight that would be missing the point, and he reels back, cheek turning red, eyes wide. 

“You want my name, Lordling, you’re going to have to earn it.” 

He straightens his spectacles. “So it’s to be ‘my money or my life,’ is it?”

Vex grins, wide enough to all but break character. “Ooh, yes! Give me all your gold!” 

He shoots her a baleful look. “Do you really think I keep all my accounts here?”

“Yes,” she deadpans. “I’m the worst robber ever.”

“I’m afraid so, my dear.” 

She cocks the pistol with an audible click, watching closely as he swallows, the muscles in his neck cording at the sound. “In that case, you’ll just have to pay for your life in other ways.” 

He arches a single, graceful eyebrow in reply. Five gold says he’s like to wiggle them next. She surges forward before he has the chance, grinding the pistol into his temple, black iron stark against the sweaty wisps of his hair. He breathes, swallows, lips parted slightly as she drags the barrel down his cheek, all witty rejoinders caught in his throat. 

“Down on your knees,” she says, and feels the tremor run through his body. “ _Now_.” His knees buckle and he lets himself fall forward, catching himself on unsteady hands, and—

Vex’s vision swims with the memory of her Percy collapsed at Anna Ripley’s feet, crimson spreading down the front of his velvet coat, and it strikes her all at once that this gun in her hand is _Animus_ , is Ripley’s gun, the gun she had used to kill Percy in Glintshore.

—and Percy is here, warm and breathing, forehead leant against Vex’s thigh. Her left hand’s gone slack at her side, and he kisses it, lips gentle on her scarred, bow-callused knuckles, and she’s back, they’re here, he’s safe. 

Vex takes a moment. Strokes his hair, cups his jaw, still marked where she struck him. Percy’s eyes glaze at this stray bit of kindness, one hand curling around her calf. 

“So what’s the verdict?” he asks. “Do I get to live?” The way he looks up at her, it’s his coded way of asking if she’s all right to go on with this. Vex’s heart clenches with how much she loves him for it. 

“We’ll see,” she says by way of an answer, and snatches the spectacles from his face, tossing them onto the bed. He’s hardly blind without them, but it’s another shield brandished against the darkness, now stripped away. She fists her hand in his hair and pulls, forcing him to arch his neck, baring his throat to her. “Tell me, are you any good with your mouth?”

“I’d like to think so,” he says. There’s a soft, amused lilt to it, all pretense of haughtiness worn away. “I can prove it, if you’d like.” 

And there’s _his_ answer, too. Vex grins again, dragging her thumb over his lower lip. In return, she can feel the tip of his tongue darting out to trace over the whorls of her fingerprint. It would be so easy to slide her fingers into his mouth, one after the other, seduced by the soft heat of it. “You’re too clever for your own good,” she tells him. _Too distracting for your own good._ “No, you’re going to take something bigger.” 

She brings up the pistol again, touching it to his lips. His eyelashes flutter. His breath catches. “Now,” Vex says. “Give it a kiss.” 

He takes her at her word, brushing his lips over the steel curve, sensual and exploratory. _Beautiful,_ she thinks, and gives his hair another tug. “Open wide,” she tells him, and he groans. “Keep your teeth out of the way if you don’t want to lose ‘em.” He complies, easy and instinctual as breathing. 

Slowly, slowly, she slides Animus’s barrel inside his mouth, a frisson of fear coiling in her stomach even as she reminds herself that the gun’s been stripped of bullets and powder. Percy’s pulse hammers under her touch, his face flushed with adrenaline and arousal. The muzzle’s almost too wide for him to take, but he manages, cheeks hollowing as he sucks. He looks her right in the eye as he does it, heavy-lidded and dark. 

She wishes she could kiss him. _Gods_ she wishes. There’s nothing she’d like to do more than grab his waistcoat and pull him close, closer, closest, to bury herself in him and not let go. Instead she curls her fingers around his throat, drags her nails over the nape of his neck, drinks in the little noises he makes. His jaw tenses as he swallows, taking the gun in deeper without being told. 

“What does it taste of?” she asks. He makes a muffled noise, and she tugs his hair. “Brat.” 

He pulls back, mouth puffy and slick. “Iron,” he says. “Traces of mineral oil and powder. It’s bitter.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“I don’t mind the taste,” he says. “It’s familiar.” Vex runs the pad of her thumb over the sliver of residuum embedded in the gunmetal. Even this comes back to Whitestone in the end. To the home and safety neither of them had thought they’d ever have again. 

“Is that what you crave?” she asks. “Familiarity?” The question takes him by surprise, like she’d hoped it would. Percy’s an innovator, thrilling at the dangerous and the unknown. It would worry her if she weren’t forged from the same alloy. 

“Perhaps a little,” he says after a moment. “As long as it’s _my_ sort of familiar.” From a man who’s made old friends of pain and darkness, Vex thinks, this isn’t as reassuring as it could be. 

Almost too late, she spies a wicked gleam in his eye as he lunges for the gun, toppling them both onto the floor. She lands on top of him, straddling his waist as he tries to pin her wrists. The position isn’t to his advantage. She can feel the pounding of his heart, the warm, ragged gusts of his breath against her neck, the hardness and heat of his arousal as she wriggles lower. 

“Silly boy,” she tells him, half-surprised at the low, silky timbre of her own voice. “What would you have done if it had gone off in your little struggle?

“Get shot, I suppose,” he says, unabashed. “Or hope that you miss. I’m very lucky, you know.” There’s a bitterness there, stinging under layers of keloid. Luck’s a fickle mistress, doubly so when you have to say you were lucky to survive. 

“Do you feel lucky right now?” she asks, kissing him before he can reply, his answer muffled beneath her tongue. In response, he releases her wrists, hands sliding over her thighs, fingers digging in hard enough they’re sure to leave bruises. He kisses back with a feral sort of desperation, biting at her lips, all propriety gone. 

Vex exults in it. He’s lovely like this, stripped down to open want and _hers_ , all hers. She sucks a ribbon of bruises down the line of his throat, feeling more than hearing the rumbly echo of his groan. Her fingers catch on his rows of buttons, tangle in the linen of his shirt, finally press against warm skin and the pulse of his heartbeat. Her hand hovers over the clasp of his breeches, waiting for his assent. 

His voice is hoarse, mouth dry as he whispers, “Please.”

“Yes.” _Anything_ , she thinks. _Anything you want._

Getting rid of their clothes is a matter of moments, clumsy and wonderful, replaced with the wild thrill of skin-on-skin. _This will never get old_ , Vex thinks. Never not surprise her. 

Vex laces their fingers together as she slides down the length of his body, rubbing against the velvety hardness of his cock. She stifles her moans in the meat of his shoulder as she takes him inside her. 

“Vex.” The way Percy says her name curls warm and heady in her gut. He reaches up to card his fingers through her hair, pulling it out of its braid. Wisps of it tickle his face, making him scrunch up his nose. It’s adorable, Vex thinks, then stops thinking as he mouths at her breasts, catches a nipple between his teeth and tugs hard. She lets out a whimper—and digs her fingernails into his chest when she catches the hint of a smirk tugging at his lips. 

“Hands over your head,” she tells him. “Keep ‘em there.” He stretches luxuriously beneath her and does as he’s told. 

The muscles in his arms stand out as she rides him, tense with the effort of keeping himself still when he wants to hold her, to take charge, to _act_ instead of taking what he’s given. She could use her body weight to pin him in this position, but there’s no need. So long as the order comes from her, he will obey. 

Vex brushes her lips over the rim of his ear. “Would you like to come?” she whispers. 

“I…” Percy’s voice cracks. “I wouldn’t be opposed, my dear.” 

There he goes, Vex thinks, with his endlessly-charming tendency to understate. It makes teasing him so easy. “Is that all?” she asks. “Simply ‘unopposed?’” She drags her fingernails down his sides, careful not to tickle. 

He laughs, shaky. “If it’s not too much trouble.” 

“What a good, thoughtful boy you are.” She bites his earlobe. “But you should know, good boys only get what they ask for. Nothing more, nothing less.” 

His eyes narrow, and she knows how hard it is, how sometimes-impossible, to make him truly beg the way she’s asking. He’s good with words but greedy with them, the way she is with gold, and greedier still with feeling, with vulnerability. 

Vex knows she’s dropped the pistol somewhere nearby. She smirks triumphantly when her fingers close around it. “Let’s see if this will help incentivize you,” she says, and levels the barrel between his eyes. 

For a moment, everything is quiet and still. Stretched above his head, Percy’s hands clench white-knuckled over nothing. His lips move soundlessly. And he breaks. 

“Please, Vex. My lady, please. Let me come.”

His words land hot as a gulp of whiskey in her belly, tingling heat echoing all the way down to her toes. It’s almost enough to send _her_ over the edge, fingers tightening on the trigger.

“Bang,” she says. The click of the empty chamber echoes, and Percy’s hips buck of their own volition. His back arches and he moans as he comes, shockingly loud in the stillness of the room. 

Vex wraps her arms around him as he comes down, rolling them both onto their sides and bundling his hands against her chest. They’re warm—a good sign, as fear all-too-often manifests itself in ice. The tip of his nose brushes the side of her face, the swell of her breast, lower. His breath tickles her sternum and she squirms, stifling laughter. 

“Now, as for you…” he says, tasting each word, lingering over them. 

Vex stretches. “Mmm, do remind me. What’s the proper punishment for thieves and housebreakers?”

“Certainly not this,” he says, and buries his face between her legs. His tongue is hot and eager on her cunt, and he slides his fingers inside her as she arches, twisting them ruthlessly. She’s so wet already, dripping down her thighs and trying not to shriek out loud. 

He hooks her knee over his shoulder, the same shoulder she’s marked with her teeth, and the flame in the fireplace fills her vision, sparking everything into silver and white as she comes. 

She curls against him in the aftermath, watching the rise and fall of his chest, listening to the sound of his breath, at once rough and peaceful. The old, familiar wrinkles etched in the corners of his eyes ease out; the lines go slack. Something inside her own chest unclenches at the sight of him. When she smiles it comes easy, without a trace of irony.

_This is why we touch the fire_ , Vex thinks. _Why we keep our hands in it just a second, just a minute, just a split decision longer._ There is a bitter, scraggly peace in knowing you’ve survived, and a truer peace beneath it, the peace of finally realizing you’re safe. _We have tamed our fires, killed our dragons. We have ridden astride the wind, hollering in joy._

_We’ve come home._

At her side, Percy stirs. “We should get to bed,” he says, long arm looping around her waist to pull her closer, with no intention of moving. Somewhere on the floor lies an unloaded gun, soon to be kicked accidentally under the desk and forgotten there ‘til morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Just so you know, the working title for this was "Two Dum-Dums and a Gun." I roast because I love.


End file.
